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Sunday, September 30, 2007

What is the mind and how does it relate to our bodies? How can something physical think? These are fundamental questions in the philosophy of mind. Tim Crane addresses these difficult issues in this interview for Philosophy Bites.

Never having been a Christian per se, I find the Christian mythology perplexing, self-contradictory and often morally questionable, not to say absurd. In the unlikely event that there are any Christians lurking about, peeping at my nudies, I have a few questions I'd like to ask. Some I've asked before but never received a satisfactory answer to. These questions are intended to provoke thought and honest discussion. Former Christians are, of course, welcome to reply as well.

I've previously had some hostile reactions to questions like these. Christians who feel that I am attacking their religion simply by asking probing questions might ask themselves why analysis of their mythology makes them uncomfortable.

Question #1: If Adam and Eve didn't understand "good" and "evil" before eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, as it seems clear they could not have, why was god so angry with them? How could they know that it was "wrong" to disobey god before they understood good and evil?

Some Christians have tried to argue that, because god said "no" that his anger at them was justified. This makes no sense. If you don't know what "wrong" is, how can you know it is "wrong" to disobey god? Just because he said don't do it doesn't mean anything to a person with no concept of "right" and "wrong". Even if they understood "no" in the sense of "don't do it" how could they possibly understand the consequences?

Religious beliefsThe substance, nature, sources and consequences of religious beliefs are distinctive:1. Substance: They claim to be about 'ultimate reality (aka "life, the universe and everything" (Renshaw, Edmondson).2. Substance: They almost always include beliefs in supernatural entities or states (Rees, Flint, Edmondson, Behman, Rogers, Poppleton).3. Nature: The beliefs are not testable (Rees) and specifically (after Popper) such that no evidence could show them to be false (Flint).4. Source: They are based on faith, revelation or tradition (Rees, Jellis, McNight, Coleman, Behman, Roberts, Poppleton) rather than evidence (Renshaw, Edmondson, Roberts, Catt).5. Consequences: They always demand that people do some things and refrain from others (Poppleton).

Religious beliefs are protected two supplementary beliefs which discourage close examination by adherents:" The belief that belief itself is virtuous - even in the absence of understanding (Coleman, Flint, Catt)." The belief that doubt is undesirable, even wicked.

Religious practicesWe recognize that each religion is a system of beliefs and practices but had little to say about the practices.

[Comment: This is a weakness since for many adherents the practices ARE the religion whilst theology is little considered.]

Religion as an historical phenomenonThere was less consensus on the historical, social and psychological nature of religion. The following views were expressed about origins:" Religions were originally attempts to understand the world (McNight)." It was natural to personify natural phenomena (Rogers) through rituals, prayers, etc. (Flint)" It seemed possible to influence these supernatural persons - giving power to priests and their allies (McNight, Behman).

Pepperdine suggested that religion evolved to strengthen the cohesion of human groups.

McNight, Broughton and Pepperdine suggested that religion is a psychological prop, welcomed by "that part of human nature which rejects evidence, reason and logic in favour of emotionally charged conclusions" (McNight).

Religion as a Force for Good

by Iam Buruma

It has become fashionable in certain smart circles to regard atheism as a sign of superior education, of highly evolved civilization, of enlightenment. Recent bestsellers by Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and others suggest that religious faith is a sign of backwardness, the mark of primitives stuck in the Dark Ages who have not caught up with scientific reason. Religion, we are told, is responsible for violence, oppression, poverty and many other ills.

It is not difficult to find examples to back up this assertion. But what about the opposite?

Can religion also be a force for good? Are there cases in which religious faith comes to the rescue even of those who don't have it?

I have never personally had either the benefits nor misfortunes of adhering to any religion, but

watching Burmese monks on television defying the security forces of one of the world's most oppressive regimes, it is hard not to see some merit in religious belief.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, is a deeply religious country, where most men spend some time as Buddhist monks. Even the thuggish Burmese junta hesitated before unleashing lethal force on men dressed in the maroon and saffron robes of their faith.

The monks, and nuns in pink robes, were soon joined by students, actors and others who want to be rid of the junta.

But the monks and nuns took the first step; they dared to protest when most others had given up. And they did so with the moral authority of their Buddhist faith.

Romantics might say that Buddhism is unlike other religions, more a philosophy than a faith. But this would be untrue. It has been a religion in different parts of Asia for many centuries, and can be used to justify violent acts as much as any other belief. For evidence, one need only look at Sri Lanka, where Buddhism is lashed onto ethnic chauvinism in the civil war between Buddhist Singhalese and Hindu Tamils.

Just as the Buddhists risked their lives to stand up for democracy in Myanmar, Christians have done so in other countries. The Ferdinand Marcos regime in the Philippines was doomed in the mid-1980s from the moment the Catholic Church turned against it. Thousands of ordinary citizens defied the tanks when Marcos threatened to crush "People Power" with force, but the presence of priests and nuns gave the rebellion its moral authority. Many political dissidents in South Korea were inspired by their Christian beliefs, and the same is true in China. And no one can deny the religious authority of Pope John Paul II as a spur to Poland's rebellion against communist dictatorship in the 1980s.

True believers would no doubt see the hand of God in these stirring events. Marcos' main opponent, Corazon Aquino, actually boasted of having a direct pipeline to God. I treat such claims with skepticism. But the moral power of religious faith does not need a supernatural explanation. Its strength is belief itself, in a moral order that defies secular or indeed religious dictators. Active resisters to the Nazis during World War II were often devout Christians. Some sheltered Jews, despite their own prejudices against the Jews, simply because they saw it as their religious duty.

Faith does not have to be in a supernatural being.

The Nazis were resisted with equal tenacity by men and women who found strength in their belief in communism.

Despite the horrific violence of Islamist fanatics, it should not be forgotten that the mosque too can be a legitimate basis for resistance against the mostly secular dictatorships in the Middle East today. In a world of political oppression and moral corruption, religious values offer an alternative moral universe. This alternative is not necessarily more democratic, but it can be.

The danger of all dogmas, religious or secular, is that they lead to different forms of oppression. The revolt against Soviet domination in Afghanistan was led by holy warriors who went on to impose their own form of misrule.

Charismatic leadership can be problematic, even when it takes a more benign form. The Madonna-like status of Aquino in the Philippines was inspiring in the heady days of "People Power," but it did little to bolster the institutions of a secular democracy. In Poland, once the battle against communism was won, the Solidarity movement was soon sundered by conflicts between secular democrats and believers who looked to the Catholic Church for guidance.

Nevertheless, faith has an important role to play in politics, especially in circumstances in which secular liberals are rendered impotent, as in the case of Nazi occupation, communist rule or military dictatorship.

Liberals are most needed when compromises have to be made, but not as useful when faced with brute force. That is when visionaries, romantics and true believers are driven by their beliefs to take risks that most of us would regard as foolhardy. It is, on the whole, not beneficial to be ruled by such heroes, but it is good to have them around when we need them.

Ian Buruma is the author, most recently, of "Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance." He is a professor at Bard College and a contributing editor to The Times' opinion pages.

If I recall correctly, our esteemed Dr. Benway once said that "It's about the basis, not the content." Yes, sometimes people of faith or religion can do good, and lots of times bad. That doesn't make their god or whatever real. It's based on lie. These people could do good without faith too. Couldn't they?

Romantics might say that Buddhism is unlike other religions, more a philosophy than a faith. But this would be untrue. It has been a religion in different parts of Asia for many centuries, and can be used to justify violent acts as much as any other belief.

What?? how does anything said there go to show it is a religion rather than a philosophy?

Many Buddhists do think they will be reborn in future lives, or even reborn into one of the several realms of being on the wheel of life...some even believe they may receive aid from certain bodhisattvas and so on. There is hardly evidence for any of these so they are a matter of faith. Buddhsim still differs from theistic religion though. The 4 noble truths, for instance, may be correct or otherwise, but they're not saying "God did certain things in galilee a couple of millenia ago and you've just got to believe that".

visionaries, romantics and true believers are driven by their beliefs to take risks that most of us would regard as foolhardy. It is, on the whole, not beneficial to be ruled by such heroes, but it is good to have them around when we need them.

Being driven by some radical moral or political ideal is different from uncritically accepting unprovable religious dogma.

The author keeps mentioning the "moral authority" of the religious. I wonder where this comes from, given that the author admits to not believing any of their religions to be factually true? "Its strength is belief itself, in a moral order that defies secular or indeed religious dictators." So the moral authority of religion comes from the belief in its moral order...? Isn't that just called "morality," or did I miss something?

Leaving aside for a moment that, as mentioned above, all these example fail the Hitchens test, there's an even more important point.

This article, like many in the past, in fact ignores the main point of the rationalists. It's all about whether or not religion can lead to good. Well of course it can, but that's not the point. The point, first and formost, is that religion is false. Only after astablishing that do rationalists go on to say "Oh, and it causes all these problems too". Religion is a lie. People who believe in a lie will, by definition, have a view of reality that is askew. This is a disaster waiting to happen because when you start with wrong premises you get to wrong conclusions. If you don't know how the world works in the most basic sense, then you don't really know anything about anything. And this is of course where we have all those examples of the religious gone mad to choose from. On the other side of that equasion, of course the truth can also cause problems. But at least these problems should be visible to our reasoning because our brains are working properly. To accept faith in your life is basically to walk around with your eyes closed. I would not recommend it. No matter how scary the real world seems, it is better to see where you are and where you're going.

Nevertheless, faith has an important role to play in politics, especially in circumstances in which secular liberals are rendered impotent, as in the case of Nazi occupation, communist rule or military dictatorship.

So the only people who oppose these things are those with faith ? What an offensive load of rubbish.

After finishing this week's Economist coverage on Myanmar, I wondered when a journalist would focus on the religious/faith aspect of the Buddhist monks protest. Lo and behold, here is such an article.

This author must be a godsend to have when shopping in bargain basements, have him close by a particularly deep bargain bin, and he probably could successfully scrape its bottom and come up with a find--a bedraggled sweater unraveling at its hem that could keep you momentarily warm until it completely unravels and is rendered useless for its intended purpose.

It is, on the whole, not beneficial to be ruled by such heroes, but it is good to have them around when we need them.____

And, pray tell, what do we do with the maniacs when we no longer need their rabid, unquestioning faith-based actions?

Comment #74605 by mjwemdeeThis article had absolutely nothing to say. It's like a mouthful of margarine.

Absolutely nothing? Well, not quite.I checked out the original article in the LA Times, and discovered that the sub-heading had been omitted here on RD Net:

As the Burmese rebellion shows, it's often the faithful who are inspired to do great things.

Get it? The Burmese angle, that's what makes it interesting and copy-worthy.It's an old journalistic trick, used to eke out a few column-inches in a news-paper - link up a topical debate and a current event and reveal a new (ha ha) "angle".Also posting this article here helps ward off criticism from those who would accuse us of ignoring events where the heroes are religites.

What a chaotic piece of writing. The black and white vision on the world can be seen from most if it, best summarized in:"Liberals are most needed when compromises have to be made, but not as useful when faced with brute force. That is when visionaries, romantics and true believers are driven by their beliefs..."

Because we all know that you are either a liberal or a visionary, romantic or true believer (in what actually?), and the latter are the only ones who care...

If Theravada Buddhism is such a force for good, irrevocably opposed to oppresion and tyranny, then why is it that the monks only came out to protest after recent government attacks on activists protesting over hikes in fuel prices rather than back in 1962 when the military Junta first took power in General Ne Win's coup?

Why is it, incidentally, that Burma could remain a military dictatorship for forty-five years if its people are so religious and enamoured by their egalitarian, peace-loving monastic traditions? It is worth noting that the monks' first actions before hitting the streets were to withdraw all spiritual services from government military personnel. This of course indicates that they were providing such services in the first place...

Of course what they are doing now is laudable, but are they doing it because they are Buddhist monks or because they are just as fed up with tyrannical misrule as the rest of the Burmese citizenry? Sure they are icons of morality and legitimacy to these people, but doesn't that mean they are at least tacitly complicit in shoring up the regime by not speaking out sooner? One wonders whether their comparative apathy over the last four decades has not discouraged citizen disobedience, given that their current action is now encouraging it. Might Burma be a free country today had these saffron-wearing ascetics given more thought to their social responsibilities and less to their mystical mumbo-jumbo?

The bottom line is that religion does affect how people behave. It makes some people do bad things and other people do good things - either at random or at least in a far from rationally coherent manner. Do we really want our most important moral conversations held to ransom by archaic myth? Do we really want the incidence of good and ill in our world to turn on the capricious whims of demented prophets?

As usual the good that is supposedly done by those of religion could just as easily be done by those of another faith or - more importantly - by someone of no faith. Oppressed people will eventually rise up. The tide of history show us this.

That in this case it was the monks who took the lead is commendable, but not attributable to their faith. Any one group could have done it, it just happened to be them in this case. Had it been the students who kicked this round of protests off would Iam Buruma be pushing that 'being currently in a university education' is a 'force for good'. No, I don't think so. Even if, as is the case, that student bodies have a far, far better track record of speaking out against atrocities and oppression.

The evils that religion drives some of it's adherents to, forces the apologists to seek some indisputable 'good done by religion'. This is to try and counterbalance the atrocities, both historical and contemporary done by people of 'faith'. However, as Christopher Hitchens keeps challenging, what act of 'good' or ethical stance held or done by a religious person can not also be done or held by the staunch atheist?

On the subject of balancing the scales just how many acts of 'good' are required to nullify an act of evil? How many acts of religiously motivated compassion are required to counter a single religiously motivated murder? More than a simple handful is my guess.

Given the histories and contemporary actions of most of the world's religions they are so far into the red on the good/evil scale they could spend the next three thousand years of doing nothing but unambiguous good and still never tip the scales to even, let alone into the black.

No, religion is NOT a force for good. History shows us it is an unmitigated force of evil, set to destroy all in it's path. The occasional act of compassion or civil disobedience done in its name is more down to simple human decency and not the professed theology of people involved.

So, if a bit (or a lot) of faith makes some people do a bit more good than they perhaps otherwise would. So what? I would contend the good is more than outweighed by the bad. And, as others have so rightly pointed out, it's based on a lie anyway. Not a particularly moral basis for doing anything. As for supporting a concept that can be best summed up as 'useful fanatasism', well, just how stupid is that. One man's fanatic is another's martyr and we all know what that results in.

As a card carrying Liberal, I sometimes wonder if my socio-political beliefs are, in fact, a form of faith. But faith in humanity, not gods. I would like to think there was at least a bit of evidence to support my philosophy, but I could be compeltely deluded. You won't get many religites admitting the same about their beliefs.

I take a hard line on religion and don't concede any ground in debate with faith-heads. After all, religion has taken a prety hard line on me in the past, and it deserves a bloody good kicking. Now, where are my shit-kicking boots...

Methinks that a military junta can only take foothold from within in a society that is ridden with superstition. Is there anybody who knows if that ever happened in a 'moderately' rational society?For the moment I can't see it happen in most West European countries, but what if irrationalism (not necessarily religious) will grow?

"I have never personally had either the benefits nor misfortunes of adhering to any religion, but..."

Ah - more 'I'm a atheist buttery'

"Bhuddism...can be used to justify violent acts as much as any other belief."

Putting Bhuddism on an equal footing with Islam and fundamental Christianity is simply dishonest - not all religions are equally harmful.

"It is, on the whole, not beneficial to be ruled by such heroes [visionaries, romantics and true believers], but it is good to have them around when we need them."

Yes, how blessed we are to share our planet with these true believers. Just think how much we'd miss all the jihadis, condom-banning priests, queer-bashing bishops and young earth creationists. Religious values do indeed 'offer an alternative moral universe'.

The most insidious danger presented to democracy by terrorism occurs when democracies self-harm in response, by trying to deliver themselves security by the deeply misguided means of tampering with their own civil liberties.

They do it in order to make the job of the security services easier, by assuming greater powers for holding people in detention for longer, increasing surveillance of the whole population from its bank accounts to its library borrowing habits, limiting free speech, giving each individual a number plate (in the form of an ID card) so that he or she can be tracked and traced everywhere, and more.

These harms to the fabric of a free society have longer effects, and in the long run worse effects, than terrorists' bombs. Yes, security is important, but not at the cost of doing the terrorists' work for them by damaging the fabric of our own society.

AC Grayling is professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Terrorism itself can do little but terrify, but what we do with our fear can drastically weaken democracy. In recent years, too many abuses of democracy to count have occurred under the ironic guise of protecting our freedom.

The Bush administration has manipulated the climate of intense anxiety that arose after 9/11/01 and used the "war on terror" as a justification for invading a sovereign nation, condoning torture, suspending due process of law for prisoners, and ignoring (or worsening) a host of other problems that the electorate prioritizes.

Consequently, we have a democracy that is disturbingly damaged, but we also have an election coming up, and with it, the prospect of change.

Yes. Terrorism is destroying democracy in the US - not the terrorism of al-Qaida, which is minor, but the terrorism of a military-dominated administration in Washington. This terrorism has been going on for a very long time, but these days the neo-fascist impulses of Bush, Cheney and their gang, together with a supine Congress,

have seen off the bill of rights

and

legalised torture and bloody foreign conquest, and caused the US to be feared and hated across the world.

Millions of Americans may well be waking up to this; for only they can save their democracy, just as only ordinary Britons can save theirs.

John Pilger is an award-winning war correspondent, film-maker and author.

In the six years since the destruction of the twin towers in New York, the very real threat of jihadism has caused a mammoth increase in police and government surveillance worldwide. It is difficult to imagine how this process will ever be reversed or undone. Alas,

most citizens, faced with the imminent destruction of their way of life, will gladly exchange freedom for safety. Hence terrorism, which ferrets out the weaknesses in our fantastically complex and interconnected economies, does indeed challenge the future of democracy.

Camille Paglia is professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

This is a propagandistic question, which implies, we, the west, are democratic and other people are the terrorists.

The reality is that the state terrorism of the US government, aided and abetted by the British government, is the most powerful terrorism there is. Think of the things the US has done in Iraq, which is a war crime on a massive scale, as well as Nicaragua, Chile and many others. Think of the terrorism of the British government in the acquisition and disposition of our empire.

It turns out, looking at the historical record, that a great many things can destroy democracy - and quite easily, once certain pressures are brought to bear. Terrorism can't destroy a strong democracy - look at the United Kingdom, with its years of attacks from the IRA. But once democracy begins to weaken, a terror attack - or a flood, or a mass protest that results in a "threat to public order" - can all be used as excuses to crack down on civil society and make martial law easier - as provided for recently, I am sorry to say, in the US by the 2007 Defence Authorisation Act.

Naomi Wolf is an author and co-founder of the American Freedom Campaign.

Terrorism destroying democracy. What democracy? My memory only recalls a short while back a moment in history where a nation bigger than most was scandalised, robbed and lied to. Afterwards all accountability was lost, in a complacent helpless country medicated by the sweet syrup of cable television and air conditioning. An IV drip, for all Americans, to soothe those burns and band aid any sores caused by corporate corruption, consumer society, and stolen elections.

In my adult life I have participated in two elections. Bush was of course a candidate in both, seeing as I am only 26. I was denied the right to the truth about the elections by allegedly the most democratic country on the face of the earth: one that wages wars based on a mythological governing system, one that occupies countries for people whose opinion they have never asked.

As I have only known this kind of government the only thing I can really say is: I have never seen democracy. I have heard about it under the red white and blue hard covers of American history books in elementary school. I have seen the word written on banners between the talons of a bald eagle, below photos of white powder wigs on the heads of slave owning white men with wooden teeth, and my conclusion is that is what democracy has been my whole life.

Beth Ditto is lead singer of The Gossip and a G2 columnist.

Dozens of writers are tackling our 10 big questions about democracy. Read more from Why Democracy? here. And, from Sunday, read the Observer's special selection of responses here.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

With mounting protests in recent days in Burma, the ruling military junta have reacted with unwarranted and ferocious assaults on the demonstrators. Violent confrontations have taken place in several locations, notably around the infamous Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon. Some 700 students, monks and nun have been beaten by riot police with batons, and at least 20 teargas canisters and a similar number of live bullets have been fired by police in the vicinity of the pagoda.

IUSY is gravely concerned at the increasing violence and the intolerance shown by the military regime of any dissent or opposition. IUSY firmly believes that the deteriorating situation in Burma must not go unnoticed and thus IUSY is launching its own "IUSY Burma Watch" as part of it’s ongoing Burma Campaign. You can access the IUSY Burma Watch on the following link: http://iusyburmawatch.blogspot.com/

Moreover IUSY stands firm in its belief that the ruling junta must now be placed under the maximum possible international pressure thus IUSY is launching an appeal to all member organisations for global action to put pressure on the military junta to ensure peace and take steps to engage in a real process of democratic transition.

On the 2-3 November IUSY will be holding a meeting on Burma with the All Burma Students League (ABSL). In the run up to this meeting IUSY will launch a month of action on Burma on the 1st October accumulating with a global action on the 2nd November in support of the Burmese People.

So Join our actions of International Solidarity and support the Saffron Revolution of the Burmese People !

OK, to be more polite about it :)) ... if you haven't already done so, please consider sending ...

1) your photo;

2) your real first and last name (and how you'd like to be described - e.g., curmudgeon, atheist, artist, physician, decorator, whatever - it doesn't matter whether that description is of what you do or who you are - see the way photos are set up at Butterflies-R-Free for illustration);

3) and (last) a quote of yours, or a blurb about yourself, or a quote you like of someone else's to go underneath your photo ... to:

ikonachka [at] yahoo.com

Many well-known secularists (past and present) from all walks of life will be represented here, but this is mainly a roll call - in photos - of people from around the world who value reason, freedom, and intellectual integrity.

We are a diverse group, but what we have in common is that our feet are planted on the terra firma in the real world - and not in the world of make believe.

In an impassioned warning about the rising power of the jihadis in an increasingly unstable Pakistan, Maruf Khwaja makes a glancing reference to two other conflicts: “With Afghanistan and Iraq ruined forever…”. It’s a bleak dismissal: sweeping, perhaps exaggerated, but clearly expressing deeply felt emotions welling from the still bleeding wound of partition. Those events 60 years ago culminated in a betrayal of the secularist idealists who fought for a unified, multi-ethnic, multi-religious India, and Pakistan was established on the basis of what Khwaja calls “brittle, tenuous religious identity”.

Don’t try to create a nation artificially on the basis of such precarious ties, he cautions. It can’t work.

We must hope for the sake of the millions there, and ourselves, that Iraq is not “ruined for ever”. But Khwaja’s stark statement does at least cut through the spin phrases so beloved by politicians – “up-swings”, “surge success” or “stay-the-course strategies”. Instead, it forces a recognition of just how disastrous the outcome of the invasion has been. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence to support his dire prognostications. In the past weeks alone there have been the single worst suicide bombing in the region, claiming 500 lives of the Kurdish Yazidi sect, the news that 190,000 AK47s destined for Iraqi security forces have been “lost” en route, and the admission that

the British army, having given up trying to intercede in the violence between Shia factions in Southern Iraq, is moving rapidly toward an ignominious withdrawal.

Even President Bush appears to have recognised the hopelessness of the debacle. In a speech to military veterans in late August he insisted that leaving Vietnam too early had been a factor in causing the killing fields of Cambodia – curiously, since the US administration has habitually denied any comparison at all with that great misadventure.

And now, in some quarters, especially

among certain Democratic candidates for the US presidency including Hillary Clinton, there is renewed talk of partitioning Iraq along religious and ethnic lines: Shia, Sunni and Kurd. This would be a betrayal of the majority of the population who, according to a recent survey, identify themselves first as Iraqis and only secondarily, if at all, by their religious affiliation. The lasting and devastating effects of partition of the subcontinent should be warning enough that such divisions can only lead to yet more destruction.

Friday, September 28, 2007

TelevisionInside a Sharia Court (BBC2, Monday 1 October, 9pm)According to Ruhl Hamid's fascinating film, 40 per cent of British muslims would like to see elements of Islamic sharia law incorporated in the British legal system. But could this ever be possible, given (for Westerners) its barbaric connotations – the stoning to death of women for adultery and amputation for theft? Hamid goes to Nigeria, where elements of sharia law run alongside the standard western system of justice, to see how the two get along. She and her crew sit in on a sharia court, where a judge decides on social and domestic disputes (there are no lawyers).

There are, thankfully, no stonings (though a woman's evidence in a sharia court is worth only half that of a man and if a woman alleges rape, she has to find four reliable witnesses before charges can be brought), but Hamid doesn't shirk difficult questions and spiritedly tries to pin down the judge, who does his best to hide behind such phrases as "It is divine law. Nobody has the right to change it."

Letter From Nick Siragher: In answer to this Friday's Newsline headline imploring readers to 'do your part' I (and I'm sure other readers) would like advice about what more one can do. Joining the NSS is one small step (I joined a while ago) please can you direct me to where and how I can give practical support.

Terry Sanderson (NSS President) replies: Nick, we do all need to do our part, and

the best way is to take the message of secularism and its benefits into your community.

I am constantly imploring members to get involved in the institutions that we all share – local authorities, health trusts, school governing bodies – get elected to public office, get on committees and that's where the battle can be most usefully fought by members.

Christians – and increasingly Muslims – have discovered that you have to be part of the system if you want to make a difference

. The communities secretary Hazel Blears said in her speech the other day that

We must do what she urges other "communities" to do. The "faith communities" certainly know instinctively that they can gain significant influence this way.

The NSS is here to fight the general battle, to do the research, to lobby nationally, and to offer information and support when confrontations occur. But

in the end, it is the decision-makers we are trying to influence – and we want more of them to be secularists!

We want MPs who will speak out against religious encroachment, we want local councillors who will stand firm against the privileges routinely doled out to religious groups, we need school governors who will say no when religion makes yet more inroads.

Join political parties and make your views known, join a trade union and become an active participant stressing a secular perspective.

Start a secularist group in your college, university, school or local area. This is how we can all do our bit, and make the biggest impact. Whatever committee you're on, whatever position of authority you might hold – see how you can bring a secularist consciousness to it. The story of the headmaster who wants a secular school in this week's Newsline shows how individuals can use their positions to fight for the cause. NSS member Sheila Kinsella showed how a 'member of the public' can do their bit when she put a pertinent question to Education Secretary Ed Balls in the Independent this week.

The NSS will encourage and help you in any way that it can.

It's up to all of us to go out there and put our principles into practice. It takes commitment, time and energy – but you did ask.From John Stuart:It's all very well writing to each other, we all agree. Write to local and national Press.

"Happiness is the only good ... the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so." Robert Green Ingersoll, American humanist 1876BHA postcard (buy 10 for £3.50 from BHA)

Ingersoll still resounds todayRobert G. Ingersoll was one of the 19th century America's most famous and popular men. Now he has been almost entirely erased from the history of that country. The reason? Well, he was the Christopher Hitchens of his day, a wonderfully entertaining orator who used his verbal skills to launch a full frontal attack on religion. His lecture tours played to packed houses, his every utterance was reported by the press. Wherever he went, crowds would follow. So devastating were the fusillades that he launched at the Bible and the people who preached it, that he was under constant attack from the religious establishment. The ruthless religious forces that holds power at the moment in the USA are obviously not anxious that such a man should be remembered, and so one of America's most interesting historical figures has been air-brushed from the picture. Apart from a few enthusiasts, Ingersoll is almost forgotten.

Now we have in the NSS shop a book of his speeches, his essays and his sayings. The Best of Robert Ingersoll. This is a book that will cheer every freethinker because it is written by a man who was clearly in love with life. That infectious joie de vivre comes across in every sentence, and an earthy compassion shines through all he writes. If you don't know the works of Robert Ingersoll, prepare to become a fan. Every thinking person should have this book on their shelf for frequent perusal.

While you're at the shop, why not take a look at our new range of secular seasonal cards. They're beautiful and unusual – just the ticket for the non-believer who wants, nonetheless, to send good wishes at the solstice season. See here for more information.

Council of Europe to vote on creationismThe Council of Europe will vote next week on a resolution that opposes the teaching of creationism in schools and intelligent design in science classes. The debate on the resolution will take place in the Parliamentary Assembly on October 4.

The resolution says attacks on the theory of evolution were rooted "in forms of religious extremism" and amounted to a dangerous assault on science and human rights. It also says that schools in Europe should "resist presentation of creationist ideas in any discipline other than religion." It describes the "intelligent design" argument as an updated version of creationism.

Anne Brasseur, an Assembly member from Luxembourg who updated an earlier draft resolution, said the vote had been due in June but was postponed because some members felt the original text amounted to an attack on religious belief. However, only minor changes have been made to the initial draft.

Even if passed, the resolution will not be binding on the 47 member states, but would send out a strong message of disapproval of the encroachment of creationism into schools. The Council of Europe is based in Strasbourg and oversees human rights standards in member states and enforces decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.

One attempt to introduce creationism is being made in Northern Ireland by Ian Paisley's DUP. Read the details.

Government warns schools against creationismThe Department for Children, Schools, and Families (DCSF) has written to all schools with a warning about the teaching of creationism and intelligent design as fact, and has issued guidance on how to handle such situations. The British Centre for Science Education strongly supports this move and hopes that it will be effective in preventing children being misinformed about scientific ideas.

The guidance was issued in response to propaganda issued in late 2006 by a Christian fundamentalist-backed creationist organization styling itself "Truth in Science", which sent packets of creationist teaching materials to every secondary school in the UK. With such material in mind, it recommends, "Any resource should be checked carefully before it is used in the classroom.

If resources which mention creationism or intelligent design are used, it must be made clear that neither constitutes a scientific theory."

Mike Brass, Chairman of the British Centre for Science Education said,

"We are very pleased that the Government has issued such a strong statement and clear instructions to schools, which should go a long way to prevent children being misinformed. However, we remain deeply concerned that creationist groups are still being allowed to operate or influence City Academies and similar schools outside the mainstream. The Government should close this loophole immediately."

The Subtle, Lethal Poison of Religion

On Sunday the New York Times reported on the recrudescence of "faith-based" teaching in Russian public schools:

A teacher named Irina Donshina set aside her textbooks, strode before her second-graders and, as if speaking from a pulpit, posed a simple question:

"Whom should we learn to do good from?"

"From God!" the children said.

"Right!" Ms. Donshina said. "Because people he created crucified him. But did he accuse them or curse them or hate them? Of course not? He continued loving and feeling pity for them, though he could have eliminated all of us and the whole world in a fraction of a second."

This grisly vignette, which almost perfectly summarizes the relationship between sadism and masochism in Christian teaching, probably wouldn't delight all those who think that morality derives from supernatural authority.

After all, the Russian Orthodox Church was the patron of Czarist autocracy, helped spread The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the West, and compromised with the Stalin regime just as it had been allied with earlier serfdom and chauvinism. It is now part of Vladimir Putin's sinister exercise in the restoration of Russian supremacism and dictatorship: an enterprise that got off to a good start when our President admired Mr. Putin's crucifix and "looked into his soul". (Question: has Putin ever been seen wearing that crucifix again, or did his cynical advisers tell him that the Leader of the Free World was such a pushover for the "faith-based" that he would never check?)

So, and as with Salafist madrassas, it's easy to see how wicked it is to lie to children when it's done in the name of the "wrong" faith. But Ms Donshina's

nonsensical propaganda is actually a mainstream statement of what the truly religious are bound to believe. Without god, how could we tell right from wrong, or learn how to do the right thing? I have never had a debate with a religious figure of any denomination, however "moderate, where this insulting question has not come up.

Yet is it not positively immoral to argue that our elementary morality and human solidarity derive from an authority that we must simultaneously (and compulsorily) love, and also fear? Does it not degrade us in our deepest integrity to be told that we would not do a right action, or utter a principled truth, were it not for fear of punishment or hope of reward?

Moreover, we are told that we begin sinful and must earn our redemption from an authority whose actions and caprices (arranging a human sacrifice in Palestine in which we had no say, for example, and informing us that we are all guilty of it) were best summarized by Fulke Greville when he remarked ruefully that we are "created sick; commanded to be sound". This abject attitude, of sickly love for the Dear Leader combined with dreadful terror of him, is in fact the origin of totalitarianism. And there is nothing ethical about that.

I should like, for the continued vigor of this discussion, to repeat the challenge that I have several times offered the faithful in print and on the air.

Can they name a moral statement or action, uttered or performed by a religious person, that could not have been uttered or performed by an unbeliever? I am still waiting, after several months, for a response to this.

It carries an incidental corollary: I have also asked large and divergent audiences if they can think of a wicked action or statement that derived directly from religious faith, and you know what? There is no tongue-tied silence at THAT point. Everybody can instantly think of an example.

I don't rest my case but I have stated it as concisely as I can and I look forward to reviewing, and replying to, anyone who might be good enough to respond.

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist and author whose latest book is entitled “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."

Published: 24 September 2007

I fast for some days every week of this month of Ramadan. At an ifthar (breaking of fast) gathering last week, Rahim, a handsome young Muslim doctor and I chatted about this and that, and the end of our world: "Do you think refined and educated Muslims will survive this century? Or will we become extinct? I feel I don't know who I am any more. My parents, too, say the same. Barbaric Muslims are stronger than us, more stupid and ignorant, but stronger, you know."

You hear these outpourings of grief and hopelessness a lot these days. Ignorance is not bliss, it is oblivion, wrote the American novelist Philip Wylie. Ill-educated, volatile, easily led, despised by millions, Muslims the world over are falling into that void, into oblivion. Some are and will be annihilated by external foes and enemies within, including the demon cheerleaders inside the heads of suicide bombers, but many more will be consumed by their own terror of the modern world.

Look today at India and Pakistan, neighbours, twin nations with identical histories and values. While the former is poised to challenge the economic and cultural power of the West, the latter is imploding and joins the ever-growing club of failed Muslim states.

India has shameful problems – extreme poverty, corruption, greed, the caste system, Islamophobia and misogynist cultural practices – but, unlike Pakistan, it also has a free press and democracy, and its population understands the importance of education and enlightenment.

Come to our isles and the same stark contrast emerges. British Asians of Indian background (including Muslims from India) are top of the league tables in schools, universities, business and the professions. They are mentally agile, inquisitive, and encouraged to strive by their families. With some individual exceptions, British Muslims of Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds languish at the bottom of all indicator tables. It is heartbreaking.

Some of this failure to catch up is to do with discrimination, no doubt about that. Some, though, is the result of self-limitation. In the past decade, there has been a sharp increase in British Muslims entering higher and further education, but even this good news has a depressing undertow.

In nearly all universities in this country, including the elite establishments, there are cells of well organised Muslim obscurantists who entice or bully fellow Muslim scholars seeking to liberate their minds.

They write to me, bright and ambitious students who feel spied on, coerced, hounded and tormented because they do not wear a hijab, or are seen meeting diverse mates in the student union bars, or choose "haram" subjects such as creative writing, art, drama or even European languages. One young Muslim woman at the LSE actually had a novel snatched from her hand, and says she was then held and harangued by her hijabi assailant who left a bruise on her arm. I pity both. What makes a university undergraduate this appallingly afraid of fiction? Who got into her head to distort it so?

It wasn't always thus. The fanatics who want to take us into their version of the holy past don't know and don't care about inconvenient truths. Allah commands us to seek knowledge and intellectual engagement. The best of past Muslim civilisations nurtured enquiry, debate, love, desire, words, music, dance, art, philosophy, science and beauty. The effusive Michael Wood's BBC programme on the Mughal Emperor Akbar last week was a wonderful reminder of that enlightened period of our history,

hunker down, just in case someone decides to get offended (and someone always does), inciting an uproar on the web, on the media, on the streets bringing out the mobs in Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, South Africa, Somalia and on and on. Inevitably some die for a cause they never really understood and the restless army of discontents shuffles off until the next noisy and bloody march.

I know of talented painters and poets in Pakistan who have just given up or fled. Arab artists, activists and thinkers unafraid of the truth are in actual prisons or enclosed behind limitations built by their fearful societies.

Explosive episodes are always gathering round the corner. We witnessed the organised outrage over the Channel 4 programmes exposing some of the vile imams still controlling some mosques. The film of the Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner, about a young boy in Afghanistan, is causing much anger. One of the pivotal scenes involves a homosexual rape of a Shia boy. They won't have that, it is a slur, an insult. Muslims don't do such things. The same protests met Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane, in which a young Bangladeshi wife in Tower Hamlets has an affair. Muslims don't do such things etc, etc. Of course there is no rape and adultery in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, those are bad "western" behaviours. The controversy will be reheated when the film of Brick Lane is released in a few weeks.

Now I didn't rate the book much; the film, which I have been sent pre-release, actually moved me more. The more voluble East End Bangladeshis are not bothered about considered judgements of literary or critical merit. They will cry foul because the story taints their honour and culture, it reflects back to them what they would rather not see.

When cultures get this coarse, they can only give rise to the worst, most unaccountable and violent leaders. This is what we see all through the Muslim world.

In good societies, people build up sense and sensibilities, acquire communication skills, learn intelligent engagement with written and spoken words and with diverse views, open their minds to new ideas and images. And the formally uneducated are as capable of this expansiveness as those with degrees.

The poorest Londoners loved Dickens, and he changed the way they imagined their lives; peasants were drawn to Gandhi because he helped them break out of mental bondage. These men brought political and personal awakening to the rough and wretched, and enabled them to understand subtleties and nuances and what it is to be human. Britain and India have strong democracies because their populations have been acculturated and sensitised over centuries.

In Muslim states and communities, you find the people fast becoming deculturalised and desensitised; shutting down and withdrawing into paranoia.

I write this not to encourage Islamophobes, but because I care. Ramadan is a time for sober reflection. It should bring peace, but doesn't.

Many of us tremble with trepidation at the bleak future ahead. The savages are taking over and, as Rahim says, they are stronger and will drag all the faithful down into the pits of hell.

When I was five, my mother tried bribing me to behave while she shopped. She handed me a toy plane as we passed through that aisle; I held the package tightly while we checked out. After we got to the car, my childish fingers attacked the plastic and pulled the die-cast jet from its marketing prison. The long, patient wait while Mom finished shopping had paid off. In my hands I held a brand-new replica of a Harrier jet. A brand-new replica Harrier that had one tail fin angled forty-five degrees out of true.

After some crying on my part, we gathered the packaging from the car floor and re-entered the store. One in-kind exchange later, I ripped apart another package only to find that this toy model had the same defect. The problem was not with the individual plane. The problem had occurred at the factory. All of the models had the same mistake. My mother said I should pretend it was turning left.

"All the time?" I wailed.

My mother, unlike my five-year-old self, knew not to take models so seriously. Models are inherently flawed; they are lesser than the original. Regardless, models can still be extremely useful. Newton's model of gravity was enough for the Apollo missions, and what good is a 1:1 scale map?

Understanding that our scientific knowledge is "only" a model is the key to true scientific literacy.

Knowing this tells us that our science has built-in limitations, but that it does resemble reality in very fundamental ways. More importantly,

that understanding gives us permission to use our models when they are useful—and permission to discard them when they no longer meet our needs.

A literate person is not a walking dictionary, but someone who has enough knowledge about the language to be able to read.

Being able to examine our models, critically evaluate them, and even discard them is far more scientifically literate than being able to regurgitate facts for a standardized test.

Surely, a certain basic, fundamental knowledge is vital to avoid having to constantly return to Descartes. But as he found, even then, critical thinking is necessary to verify these fundamental "facts." Ultimately,

our models and descriptions of reality must be subject to two overriding criteria: How useful is this model, and how much does this model resemble our observations?

Scientific literacy requires an understanding that science is only a model. We have to be able to jettison our models when our critical thinking leads us to that conclusion.

Our society has largely lost that understanding. We desire immutable facts and constant certainties.

We want clean, hard edges to our world and our knowledge about that world. Politicians, educators, and business leaders crave quantitative metrics that can be compared, compiled, and correlated.

As agenda-driven pundits have attacked scientific thought, we have countered their extremism with our own. Both attackers and defenders blur the distinctions between theories, facts, and hypotheses.

A scientifically literate society knows none of that is necessary.

The edifice of science is not in danger of crumbling; it is under constant renewal.

Each generation's orthodoxy was the prior's heresy.

Many commonly-accepted "facts"—plate tectonics, quantum mechanics, birds' relation to dinosaurs, the Big Bang, RNA's role in the cell, punctuated equilibrium, global climate change, good and bad cholesterol—were extremely controversial not so long ago.

And the process continues, with ongoing challenges to accepted models both in their details and in their broad brushstrokes.

It is understanding the inherent value of this uncertain interplay that is true scientific literacy. It is knowing that Newton, Galileo, or any of our forebearers were scientifically literate themselves, despite not having all the data that we have today.

It is the difference between reciting spelling words and grokking e.e. cummings and Maya Angelou.

The BHA Science Group is for all members of the BHA with an interest in science. You do not need any formal scientific qualifications to join, but you do need to have a passion for science and a concern for the role of science in society.

The group has two broad aims. Firstly, it

aims to encourage interest and awareness of humanism (and membership of the BHA!) among scientists and people with a scientific bent.

It will do this by reaching out to such people who are not currently members, and also by providing news and activities and information to those who are already BHA members.

Secondly,

the group aims to increase improve understanding of scientific knowledge and principles among the BHA membership and wider public.

It will do this by providing resources on relevant topics to any and all interested individuals.

Currently, the group operates informally, with activity focussed on a Yahoo! discussion forum. Members are encouraged to take an active role in developing the group and increasing its scope. There is a great opportunity to make a meaningful contribution, as well as simply to share thoughts and chat informally with like-minded people. So if you are a BHA member with an interest in science, please join us at the link on the right.

My God Problem

by Natalie Angier

In the course of reporting a book on the scientific canon and pestering hundreds of researchers at the nation's great universities about what they see as the essential vitamins and minerals of literacy in their particular disciplines, I have been hammered into a kind of twinkle-eyed cartoon coma by one recurring message. Whether they are biologists, geologists, physicists, chemists, astronomers, or engineers, virtually all my sources topped their list of what they wish people understood about science with a plug for Darwin's dandy idea. Would you please tell the public, they implored, that evolution is for real? Would you please explain that the evidence for it is overwhelming and that an appreciation of evolution serves as the bedrock of our understanding of all life on this planet?

In other words, the scientists wanted me to do my bit to help fix the terrible little statistic they keep hearing about, the one indicating that many more Americans believe in angels, devils, and poltergeists than in evolution. According to recent polls, about

82 percent are convinced of the reality of heaven (and 63 percent think they're headed there after death); 51 percent believe in ghosts; but only 28 percent are swayed by the theory of evolution.

Scientists think this is terrible—the public's bizarre underappreciation of one of science's great and unshakable discoveries, how we and all we see came to be—and they're right. Yet I can't help feeling tetchy about the limits most of them put on their complaints. You see, they want to augment this particular figure—the number of people who believe in evolution—without bothering to confront a few other salient statistics that pollsters have revealed about America's religious cosmogony. Few scientists, for example, worry about the

77 percent of Americans who insist that Jesus was born to a virgin, an act of parthenogenesis that defies everything we know about mammalian genetics and reproduction. Nor do the researchers wring their hands over the 80 percent who believe in the resurrection of Jesus, the laws of thermodynamics be damned.

No, most scientists are not interested in taking on any of the mighty cornerstones of Christianity. They complain about irrational thinking, they despise creationist "science," they roll their eyes over America's infatuation with astrology, telekinesis, spoon bending, reincarnation, and UFOs, but toward the bulk of the magic acts that have won the imprimatur of inclusion in the Bible, they are tolerant, respectful, big of tent. Indeed, many are quick to point out that the Catholic Church has endorsed the theory of evolution and that it sees no conflict between a belief in God and the divinity of Jesus and the notion of evolution by natural selection. If the pope is buying it, the reason for most Americans' resistance to evolution must have less to do with religion than with a lousy advertising campaign.

So, on the issue of mainstream monotheistic religions and the irrationality behind many of religion's core tenets, scientists often set aside their skewers, their snark, and their impatient demand for proof, and instead don the calming cardigan of a a kiddie-show host on public television. They reassure the public that religion and science are not at odds with one another, but rather that they represent separate "magisteria," in the words of the formerly alive and even more formerly scrappy Stephen Jay Gould. Nobody is going to ask people to give up their faith, their belief in an everlasting soul accompanied by an immortal memory of every soccer game their kids won, every moment they spent playing fetch with the dog. Nobody is going to mock you for your religious beliefs. Well, we might if you base your life decisions on the advice of a Ouija board; but if you want to believe that someday you'll be seated at a celestial banquet with your long-dead father to your right and Jane Austen to your left-and that she'll want to talk to you for another hundred million years or more—that's your private reliquary, and we're not here to jimmy the lock.

Consider the very different treatments accorded two questions presented to Cornell University's "Ask an Astronomer" Web site. To the query, "Do most astronomers believe in God, based on the available evidence?" the astronomer Dave Rothstein replies that, in his opinion, "modern science leaves plenty of room for the existence of God . . . places where people who do believe in God can fit their beliefs in the scientific framework without creating any contradictions." He cites the Big Bang as offering solace to those who want to believe in a Genesis equivalent and the probabilistic realms of quantum mechanics as raising the possibility of "God intervening every time a measurement occurs" before concluding that, ultimately, science can never prove or disprove the existence of a god, and religious belief doesn't—and shouldn't—"have anything to do with scientific reasoning."

How much less velveteen is the response to the reader asking whether astronomers believe in astrology. "No, astronomers do not believe in astrology," snarls Dave Kornreich. "It is considered to be a ludicrous scam. There is no evidence that it works, and plenty of evidence to the contrary." Dr. Kornreich ends his dismissal with the assertion that in science "one does not need a reason not to believe in something." Skepticism is "the default position" and "one requires proof if one is to be convinced of something's existence."

In other words, for horoscope fans, the burden of proof is entirely on them, the poor gullible gits; while for the multitudes who believe that, in one way or another, a divine intelligence guides the path of every leaping lepton, there is no demand for evidence, no skepticism to surmount, no need to worry. You, the religious believer, may well find subtle support for your faith in recent discoveries—that is, if you're willing to upgrade your metaphors and definitions as the latest data demand, seek out new niches of ignorance or ambiguity to fill with the goose down of faith, and accept that, certain passages of the Old Testament notwithstanding, the world is very old, not everything in nature was made in a week, and (can you turn up the mike here, please?) Evolution Happens.

And if you don't find substantiation for your preferred divinity or your most cherished rendering of the afterlife somewhere in the sprawling emporium of science, that's fine, too. No need to lose faith when you were looking in the wrong place to begin with. Science can't tell you whether God exists or where you go when you die. Science cannot definitively rule out the heaven option, with its helium balloons and Breck hair for all. Science in no way wants to be associated with terrifying thoughts, like the possibility that the pericentury of consciousness granted you by the convoluted, gelatinous, and transient organ in your skull just may be the whole story of you-dom. Science isn't arrogant. Science trades in the observable universe and testable hypotheses. Religion gets the midnight panic fêtes. But you've heard about evolution, right?

So why is it that most scientists avoid criticizing religion even as they decry the supernatural mind-set?

For starters, some researchers are themselves traditionally devout, keeping a kosher kitchen or taking Communion each Sunday. I admit I'm surprised whenever I encounter a religious scientist. How can a bench-hazed Ph.D., who might in an afternoon deftly purée a colleague's PowerPoint presentation on the nematode genome into so much fish chow, then go home, read in a two-thousand-year-old chronicle, riddled with internal contradictions, of a meta-Nobel discovery like "Resurrection from the Dead," and say, gee, that sounds convincing? Doesn't the good doctor wonder what the control group looked like?

Scientists, however, are a far less religious lot than the American population, and, the higher you go on the cerebro-magisterium, the greater the proportion of atheists, agnostics, and assorted other paganites.

According to

a 1998 survey published in Nature, only 7 percent of members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences professed a belief in a "personal God."

(Interestingly, a slightly higher number, 7.9 percent, claimed to believe in "personal immortality," which may say as much about the robustness of the scientific ego as about anything else.) In other words, more than 90 percent of our elite scientists are unlikely to pray for divine favoritism, no matter how badly they want to beat a competitor to publication. Yet only a flaskful of the faithless have put their nonbelief on record or publicly criticized religion, the notable and voluble exceptions being Richard Dawkins of Oxford University and

Daniel Dennett of Tufts University. Nor have Dawkins and Dennett earned much good will among their colleagues for their anticlerical views; one astronomer I spoke with said of Dawkins, "He's a really fine parish preacher of the fire-and-brimstone school, isn't he?"

So, what keeps most scientists quiet about religion? It's probably something close to that trusty old limbic reflex called "an instinct for self-preservation." For centuries, science has survived quite nicely by cultivating an image of reserve and objectivity, of being above religion, politics, business, table manners.

Scientists want to be left alone to do their work, dazzle their peers, and hire grad students to wash the glassware. When it comes to extramural combat, scientists choose their crusades cautiously. Going after Uri Geller or the Ra‘lians is risk-free entertainment, easier than making fun of the sociology department. Battling the creationist camp has been a much harder and nastier fight, but those scientists who have taken it on feel they have a direct stake in the debate and are entitled to wage it, since the creationists, and more recently the promoters of "intelligent design" theory, claim to be as scientific in their methodology as are the scientists.

But when a teenager named Darrell Lambert was chucked out of the Boy Scouts for being an atheist, scientists suddenly remembered all those gels they had to run and dark matter they had to chase, and they kept quiet. Lambert had explained the reason why, despite a childhood spent in Bible classes and church youth groups, he had become an atheist. He took biology in ninth grade, and, rather than devoting himself to studying the bra outline of the girl sitting in front of him, he actually learned some biology. And what he learned in biology persuaded him that the Bible was full of . . . short stories. Some good, some inspiring, some even racy, but fiction nonetheless. For his incisive, reasoned, scientific look at life, and for refusing to cook the data and simply lie to the Boy Scouts about his thoughts on God—as some advised him to do—Darrell Lambert should have earned a standing ovation from the entire scientific community. Instead, he had to settle for an interview with Connie Chung, right after a report on the Gambino family.

Scientists have ample cause to feel they must avoid being viewed as irreligious, a prionic life-form bent on destroying the most sacred heifer in America. After all, academic researchers graze on taxpayer pastures. If they pay the slightest attention to the news, they've surely noticed the escalating readiness of conservative politicians and an array of highly motivated religious organizations to interfere with the nation's scientific enterprise—altering the consumer information Web site at the National Cancer Institute to make abortion look like a cause of breast cancer, which it is not, or stuffing scientific advisory panels with anti-abortion "faith healers."

Recently, an obscure little club called the Traditional Values Coalition began combing through descriptions of projects supported by the National Institutes of Health and complaining to sympathetic congressmen about those they deemed morally "rotten," most of them studies of sexual behavior and AIDS prevention. The congressmen in turn launched a series of hearings, calling in institute officials to inquire who in the Cotton-pickin' name of Mather cares about the perversions of Native American homosexuals, to which the researchers replied, um, the studies were approved by a panel of scientific experts, and, gee, the Native American community has been underserved and is having a real problem with AIDS these days. Thus far, the projects have escaped being nullified, but the raw display of pious dentition must surely give fright to even the most rakishly freethinking and comfortably tenured professor. It's one thing to monkey with descriptions of Darwinism in a high-school textbook. But to threaten to take away a peer-reviewed grant! That Dan Dennett; he is something of a pompous leafblower, isn't he?

Yet the result of wincing and capitulating is a fresh round of whacks. Now it's not enough for presidential aspirants to make passing reference to their "faith." Now a reporter from Newsweek sees it as his privilege, if not his duty, to demand of Howard Dean, "Do you see Jesus Christ as the son of God and believe in him as the route to salvation and eternal life?" In my personal fairy tale, Dean, who as a doctor fits somewhere in the phylum Scientificus, might have boomed, "Well, with his views on camels and rich people, he sure wouldn't vote Republican!" or maybe, "No, but I hear he has a Mel Gibson complex." Dr. Dean might have talked about patients of his who suffered strokes and lost the very fabric of themselves and how he has seen the centrality of the brain to the sense of being an individual. He might have expressed doubts that the self survives the brain, but, oh yes, life goes on, life is bigger, stronger, and better endowed than any Bush in a jumpsuit, and we are part of the wild, tumbling river of life, our molecules were the molecules of dinosaurs and before that of stars, and this is not Bulfinch mythology, this is corroborated reality.

Alas for my phantasm of fact, Howard Dean, M.D., had no choice but to chime, oh yes, he certainly sees Jesus as the son of God, though he at least dodged the eternal life clause with a humble mumble about his salvation not being up to him.

I may be an atheist, and I may be impressed that, through the stepwise rigor of science, its Spockian eyebrow of doubt always cocked, we have learned so much about the universe.

Yet I recognize that, from there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere. Why is there so much dark matter and dark energy in the great Out There, and why couldn't cosmologists have given them different enough names so I could keep them straight? Why is there something rather than nothing, and why is so much of it on my desk? Not to mention the abiding mysteries of e-mail, like why I get exponentially more spam every day, nine-tenths of it invitations to enlarge an appendage I don't have.

I recognize that science doesn't have all the answers and doesn't pretend to, and that's one of the things I love about it. But it has a pretty good notion of what's probable or possible, and virgin births and carpenter rebirths just aren't on the list.

Is there a divine intelligence, separate from the universe but somehow in charge of the universe, either in its inception or in twiddling its parameters? No evidence.

Is the universe itself God? Is the universe aware of itself? We're here. We're aware. Does that make us God? Will my daughter have to attend a Quaker Friends school now?

I don't believe in life after death, but I'd like to believe in life before death. I'd like to think that one of these days we'll leave superstition and delusional thinking and Jerry Falwell behind. Scientists would like that, too. But for now, they like their grants even more.

Reprinted from The American Scholar 72, no. 2, Spring 2004. (c)Natalie Angier. By permission of the publishers.

Natalie Angier is a science reporter for the New York Times and author of Woman: An Intimate Geography, Natural Obsessions, and The Beauty of the Beastly. In 1991 she won a Pulitzer Prize for her science reporting.